Neil Young fans pack final show of tour

Tom Cleary and Sean Spillane

Published 10:45 pm, Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Downtown Bridgeport was rocking Tuesday night as concertgoers flocked to see Neil Young and Patti Smith at the Webster Bank Arena, filling restaurants, jamming traffic and creating a welcome buzz in the heart of the city.

The show closed Young's first tour since 2004 with his on-and-off again group Crazy Horse and drew fans from all over the Northeast, from Maine to Maryland.

The legendary guitarist, singer and songwriter was joined Tuesday night by art-punk goddess Patti Smith and opening act Everest.

"It's the last show of the tour, so I had to come," said Mike Carson, 54, as he strolled down Main Street toward the arena.

"There are only so many opportunities to see him play, and I want to take advantage of them all."

Carson, who lives on Long Island and went to Young's show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn Monday night, said he's a diehard fan of the Canadian-born legend and was heading to his first show at the Bridgeport arena.

Tickets were general admission, which is rare for Webster Bank Arena shows.

Arena spokesman Michael Foley said people started lining up around 2:30 p.m. to get the best spots in front of the stage, which helped traffic a bit.

But there were still lines of cars coming off Interstate 95 before the show.

Around 7 p.m., the lines were short outside the arena, but they got progressively longer as show time for Smith grew closer.

Everest played to a few thousand fans, but the seats were mostly filled by the time Smith hit the stage.

A few blocks away, outside Tiago's Restaurant on State Street, John Gray, 47, of Monroe, smoked a cigarette and said the Young concert drew him to the Bridgeport arena for the first time in awhile.

"The last concert I went to here was a few years ago," said Gray, who came with his wife and two friends. "I got tickets as soon as I heard Neil was coming here. I'm already having fun, there are people all around, the food here is great."

Concertgoers spilled out of Tiago's, and packed other restaurants, including Two Boots pizza, which blasted only Neil Young songs through its sound system, starting at happy hour.

"It's an awesome atmosphere," said Nancy Roberts outside of Two Boots. "I never miss an opportunity to see Neil play, I can't wait to get in there."

Two Boots employees said the crowd was larger than normal, including when other concerts have been in the city.

The large crowd downtown was joined by a noticeably increased presence of police, including patrol officers stationed at several street corners and the city's mobile command unit, parked on Bank Street.

Police said traffic was heavy, but not much more than a typical concert, and no out of the ordinary incidents were reported.